Worn Out

As the title of the post suggests, my runners are worn out.

How do in know, well my left knee has started to hurt.
Ok, so it could be other things, but once I thought about it, it made sense.
My current 'everyday' runners were bought in September in preparation for the Dublin marathon, and I ran the marathon in them and pretty much every running day since. I have to date been very lucky, and I generally don't suffer from too many injuries, so it was unusual to experience the pain in the knee for no apparent reason.
To test the theory, I went back to another old pair,Manichaeism actually probably had less miles on them, and after two days the pain was gone. So, the perfect excuse to order the new model then.

Just over 50 miles again this week.
The tempo again went well with 7 miles at an average of 6:24, with 9 for the session.
A speed session of sorts, 10 minutes warmup, then 1 mile 5:57, 1 at 6:04, 1 at 6:13 and the final at 6:25. I know that looks bad that the miles were getting slower as they went,many I suppose to an extent it is, but I wanted to run as hard as I could for the first three and see what the times were. The last mile was just to see what the target half Marathon pace felt like afterwards.
It also serves as a benchmark for future speed sessions.

Two kind of long runs, Saturday was a 10 mile run over a very hilly course, but not run particularly hard. Sunday I kind of surprised myself. I expected to be fairly tired after almost 40 miles, with some hard sessions, including the day before, so I set out for an easy enough pace.
But one mile in and the legs were absolutely flying along. I picked up the pace to a point where I was not breathing with any difficulty, and not feeling like I was pushing the effort. While the pace was variable depending on the terrain, I finished 11 miles at 7:10 average. That was pretty good for an 'easy' target run, but more importantly, when I finished, it was like finishing an easy 10k.

I was very hungry afterwards. A pizza and ice cream afterwards for a treat, while gave me short term pleasure, the bloated feeling for the rest of the evening was definitely not worth it.

Strength training is still going well also. I think it is keeping my weight up slightly. I am currently 10st 8lbs, which is pretty heavy for me, normally around 10st 6 depending on mileage.
I didn't do Gary's 12 mile at 30 seconds slower run, it just didn't fit with how my week went.
Maybe next week, if I pluck up the courage.